Immortality
by xxept0
Summary: Orochimaru and Hidan's take on immortality.


**Title:** Immortality  
**Characters:** Hidan, Orochimaru  
**Genre:** General, Perhaps with a little angst thrown in.  
**Rating:** PG-13 (Passing mentions of shonen-ai, one sided, not between the main characters)  
**Warning:** Character from the time skip in the manga.

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Apart from immortality, Hidan and Orochimaru did not have a lot in common.

One was devout to his God, doing his every bidding and command. Another did not believe that a God existed.

Orochimaru harboured a lot of anger and malice towards whomever who was dumb enough to inflict said anger but he had few regrets During these times, his resolve to live forever burned brighter than ever, fuelled by his desire to kill, or at least outlive, the ones he hated. And there were a lot of them. With a diverse age group.

Hidan had many regrets, but had no one whom he wanted dead. Those people he had outlived, along with those whom he loved. It is when Hidan remembers everything he had lost that he regrets he can never die. Outliving everything and everyone, in his opinion, was completely over rated.

An even bigger difference would be that Orochimaru had a thing for younger boys of the same gender. Yet, he remembered a time when he harboured what could be called a crush for Jiraiya, although to his credit, Jiraiya was a month or two younger than him. Remembering Jiraiya gave Orochimaru another reason to live forever. He wanted to look into the eyes of the one he used to like, if not love, while they flickered out, as he in turn looks up at Orochimaru's young face which had never changed throughout all those years. The thought brought a sort of satisfaction to the snake sannin.

Hidan on the other hand, was straight, is straight, and will always be straight. He was a boobs man, and his God never said there was anything wrong with being a boobs man, so he will continue being a boobs man forever. Literally. And being a boobs man reminded him of his deceased wife whom he had loved, although she didn't exactly have the most impressive set of racks on the block. His wife in turn reminds him of the children they had together. And it hurts to remember these things, because he knows that they always lead back to the day he watched his wife, the later his children, die of old age. They were always looking back at his youthful face. He knows they wouldn't want him to hate himself for not being able to die. They'd want him to live every day to its fullest for them. But he just couldn't.

There were times in Hidan's life however, where he appreciated his immortality. Like the time during the first Great Shinobi War when a Rock-nin sliced his body clean in half. It was amusing to watch the ninja's face change from a victorious smirk to unadulterated terror as screams of "monster" and "don't kill me, please!" left his mouth. He always found those two words to be rather contradictory. But that wasn't the reason he was grateful for immortality. It was because later that day, he was able to return home to his wife and kids and for a little while longer, continue living together as a family. Most of the time though, he despised it.

Most of the time, Orochimaru worshiped the grounds of whatever deity, if in fact they even do exist, that had allowed him to completed his immortality jutsu, because it was just so damn useful. Sometimes though, he would doubt himself and wonder if immortality truly was a good thing. He tries to imagine what would happen after he has outlived those who had wronged him, and the last of his revenge had been fulfilled. What was he going to do after he had exhausted the last vestige of his genius brain cells and could not create any new jutsu? Would he just let himself die or shift from container to container whenever necessary with no real purpose in his life? These thoughts scared him out of his wits, so he would push it to the back of his mind, and decide that if and when the time comes, only then will he allow such thoughts to re-surface. He's not always successful at keeping it down though.

The times Hidan cursed his immortality were numerous. Like the time when he had to perform b that /b jutsu in front of his kids, and the terror on his children's faces when he transformed hurt him more than the single sword in his chest ever would. And he wouldn't tell anyone, but the terrified screams coupled with the look on their faces as they backed away from him was the only thing which could completely destroy his soul.

Orochimaru loved immortality, at least when he was not thinking of morbid thoughts concerning it. With every new jutsu which he mastered or created, inexplicable joy rose from his heart as he did a mental victory jig; knowing that at his supposed age, he should be lying sick in bed while dying of old age. The happiest day to date was when he first completed the immortality jutsu, and after entering the body of a talented young man whom he had handpicked, he did his victory jig in real life for the first and last time. Not that he would tell anybody. Nobody recognized him in that new body anyway.

Hidan doesn't want immortality. Whoever created such a notion which defied the laws of nature could shove a stick up their ass for all he cared. But this is only because he doesn't know what to do with the rest of his life. And really, it hurts to see another loved one die as he continued living day after day with the same face he had since he was a teenager.

Sometimes, Orochimaru finds it troublesome to hunt for a new body every time his old one becomes weaker, or he begins to lose his connection with it. But he does it anyway, because he has enemies to outlive, revenges to fulfil, jutsu to create, and for that, he needed to live forever.

One searched tirelessly for it, another could do without it. But like it or not, they live with it anyway.


End file.
